Brunsviga Model A
1892 · Pinwheel · Work 417 of 1,871
A pinwheel calculating machine in polished brass and black enamel, the setting wheels' levers standing out from the drum like the spokes of a ship's wheel, a fan of nine levers across the face, a curved counting register below with small numeral windows, each window showing the single digit 0, a cast maker's plate on the front reading "Brunsviga", a crank with a turned grip on the right, every other surface plain black enamel and brass, standing on a dark baize-covered table before a deep neutral background, a single raking light from the left raking across the drum and the levers.
- What it was used for
- A pinwheel machine by Grimme, Natalis & Co. of Brunswick, built on the W. T. Odhner system. The Science Museum dates its example no. 262 to about 1892-93: 142 x 346 x 197 mm, 7.372 kg, with the wheel of variable tooth count which it describes as patented by Odhner in 1891; the firm, it says, acquired the German patent rights from Odhner. The Smithsonian describes a Model A with nine setting levers and a carriage of 18 windows - example no. 6384, dated to about 1905. Rechnerlexikon records that by March 1912, 20,000 Brunsvigas had been sold.
- What was new
- Not the mechanism - that was licensed. The Smithsonian dates the purchase of manufacturing rights to 1892. What was new was series production in Germany and the continual revision of the machine; the Science Museum calls pinwheel machines in general smaller, lighter and easier to operate than arithmometers. What "Model A" denotes is blurred: the Smithsonian dates a Model A to about 1905, the Science Museum its example, which it calls not a Model A but the Brunsviga "in its earliest form", to 1892-93, and Rechnerlexikon documents a Model A with a short crank above serial number 600, explicitly contradicting earlier claims. So 1892 is the start of a series, not a year of build. And the name: Brunsviga was at first only the sales designation of Grimme, Natalis & Co.; from 1927 the name was part of the firm's name, and from 1950 it was Brunsviga Maschinenwerke AG.
Connections
Every connection names its kind. “Forerunner” on its own would be a claim.
- Follows fromOdhner Arithmometer1890Grimme, Natalis & Co. of Braunschweig built the first German pinwheel machine in 1892, shortly after buying the licence to Odhner's patents for the German-speaking market (Arithmeum). The Arithmeum calls it almost completely identical to Odhner's Model 1, down to the position of the maker's seal.Source: Arithmeum, Sammlung Rechnen einst: Brunsviga 1 · Smithsonian, National Museum of American History: Pinwheel Calculating Machines